ISTJ

You Are an Introverted Sensing Type

You belong to the most practical and realistic of all the introverted personality types. Hard-working, thorough, and responsible in all you do, you are a Rock of Gibraltar for your friends, family, and co-workers. People can lean on you with good cause: your combination of introversion, sensing, and judging forms a mighty foundation of stability and trust. You can be counted on never to undertake any enterprise or relationship impulsively or frivolously, nor forsake it for any but the soundest and most well-documented of reasons.

As an introvert, your internal life is rich and active, ruled by your sensing characteristic. Your outer life is dominated by your judging nature, which, in turn, derives its substance from your eternal data-gathering. You are capable of integrating an enormous number of facts, converting them to highly personal ideas, and relying on this massive psychological "data base" to formulate your plans and take action.

You are a permanent resident of the here-and-now, continually comparing today's data with what you collected yesterday and all the yesterdays before.

On the one hand, that tendency is extremely valuable in shaping a consistent and predictable personality—one which steadfastly avoids introducing any unnecessary change into the routine of a smoothly functioning system. On the other hand, your tendency to view what is in continuity with what has been may limit your vision of what could be. To be sure, no one would ever call you a visionary, and you wouldn't be happy with the title, anyway. You're frankly distrustful of that world of the possible which intuitive types call home. To you, they seem to be continually "up in the air." And—given your judging nature and your conviction that what you see is what exists—you're rarely shy in letting intuitives know that you don't go along with their dreamy speculations about the world.

Sometimes, in a close personal or working situation with an intuitive sort, it's all you can do to keep from asking: "Where in the world do you get your ideas?"

The answer to that question is the key to understanding the important difference between sensing and intuitive people; for, while you base all of your concepts on information received via your five senses, the intuitive only begins to formulate ideas with sensory observables.

Then the intuitive reaches beyond your reality and uses recollections, imagination and tenuous associations with other ideas, past and present, and—to make this process even less understandable to you—the intuitive does all of this instantly, without the careful reflection that goes into your thought process.

The combination of sensing plus judging is at the cornerstone of your personality, your core temperament. Yours is the outlook of the traditionalist: an individual who believes in structure, responsibility, and rules for living.

That's why we call this temperament the LEGALIST.

You are happiest when living a simple, well-spelled-out life, both at home and at work. You appreciate a pre- dictable environment, and you are both patient and comfortable with routine.

You probably prefer conventional roles within the family. Wife-mother, husband-father, older and younger children, all have particular functions in your mind.

You like a harmonious, orderly, home life, emphasizing traditional values, and you feel it is important to transmit these values to your children. You believe in discipline, and you expect reasonable behavior from your children. Your home is your castle. You want to know where things are and when things will happen. You'd just as soon not have any more change than absolutely necessary, especially rapid change, change which you don't see as necessary, or change which isn't an obvious improvement over familiar patterns.

You value tradition, history, the family as your connection with both the past and the future . Even if your ties with the extended family aren't particularly nurturing or loving ones, the rituals of clan gatherings and family celebrations probably receive your devoted attention.

You value your possessions. Given a choice, you'll spend your money on useful or home-related things: major pieces which will see many years of service. You tend to take care of things (furniture, cars, tools, and such) and you like to see others do likewise. You are unsettled by waste and conspicuous consumption.

You are conservative financially and protective of your and your family's future security. You keep an eye on future comfort, at times to the compromise of present pleasure. You believe in saving, and a credit-card life is an unsettling thought to you. You believe in planning for financial catastrophe.

You may notice a sense of pessimism pervading your view of reality. I know. I know. You call it realism. Nonetheless, you'll probably concede that Murphy, the famous author of Murphy's Law(s) (i.e., "Whatever can go wrong, will, and in the most expensive and disastrous way possible!") was probably a sensing-judging person, not too unlike yourself.

As a general trend throughout all parts of your life, you have a need to feel useful, important to other people. Your sense of obligation and responsibility may well be a driving force, pushing you to take on more and more tasks for the benefit of others.

You use your actions to prove to others and to yourself that you are a worthy and capable human being. The only problem is that you may not really believe it yourself. You may be afflicted by a kind of chronic underestimation of your abilities and talents that often troubles those with your personality type. You may take yourself for granted. Although you have an extraordinary capacity for factual knowledge—one so overwhelming that it sets you apart from all the other personality types—you may not regard yourself as particularly exceptional. You have a very realistic view of what you can and can't accomplish, and you deal with that selfappraisal merely as another of the myriad facts you handle every day.

Luckily for you, the abilities of introverted sensing people don't escape the attention of others who lack your qualities. People with your talent are "discovered," and often wind up in successful partnerships. It won't surprise you that your ideal partner can be your "missing half"—one of those intuitive characters who frustrates your view of reality!

To describe your personality in nothing but the working world omits one of your most charming qualities, your highly individualistic sense of humor. Granted, your introverted nature is such that you may not always let the world in on your humorous perspective on life, but—when you do—people are surprised to discover that your active "idea factory" is capable of doing the kind of artful association and rearrangement of facts which forms the basis of all good humor.

The combination of sensing and judging arms you with a strong sense of justice, a feeling of right and wrong which other types rarely share. You have strong sense of duty; "shoulds" and "oughts" are important words in your inner vocabulary of motivation.

You expect a great deal from yourself, and you are always judging your own behavior by tough standards. Since you set your goals so high, it's rare that you satisfy your own scrutiny of how you should perform.

It's hard for you to be entirely satisfied with your own accomplishments, no matter how much you achieve. Ironically, you may not think as much of your character and accomplishments as those around you do.

You expect performance from others too, but not nearly so much as you demand from yourself. When others don't achieve what you think they should, or when they don't even try, you are disappointed.

You are far more comfortable lending than borrowing, giving than receiving. Being independent—as in not depending on others—is of paramount importance to you. But, ironically, being independent—as a free spirit, unfettered by responsibility—is virtually impossible for one with your personality characteristics. You have a strong need to be counted on, to feel useful to others. You are almost driven to accept obligation.

Your view of life is so strongly linked to the work ethic that you feel play must be earned by work. Then, ironically, when you recreate or socialize, you may often find yourself working in that setting, too!

You spend your leisure time doing projects, fixing things, making things. You may put together a party and spend so much time working on it that you don't ever relax. Or—worse yet—you may get invited to someone else's house for dinner and you insist on helping clean up!

When those with your personality type join organizations, it is only partly to seek out fraternity and social connections. You have probably found that you quickly accept responsibility in any group you join.

Look at the bedrock of any organization: officers, founders, chairs of the working committees, and you'll be in the company of others with your super-dependable personality. Yours is the personality that establishes, nurtures and maintains organizations.

Many with your personality structure have a hard time asserting their own personal needs. In the process of taking on more and more responsibility, taking care of more and more people, you may get yourself into a situation in which you feel frankly overwhelmed by your obligations.

Then you may feel resentful. After all, if others just behaved as you do, then you wouldn't have to take on all of these tasks and chores! Guess what happens next in this scenario. In walks someone who asks you to take on another responsibility, and you jump at the chance!

Whoa, Slow down! You have a right to say "No." You have a need to say it, too. Learning to be assertive may be the key to freedom for you, liberating some time for rest and relaxation. You deserve it. Take a break and don't feel guilty about it! Your Auxiliary Process With your dominant process of sensing out of sight, ruling your inner world of thoughts and ideas, control of your outer personality falls to your judging side, guided chiefly by thinking.

Your view of duty, loyalty and commitment is directed more toward institutions than toward people. In fact, your happiness in an organization is most likely to be eroded by what you see as personality politics being played.

You value the rules, procedures and authority structure as they are, and you resent it when someone tampers with them for reasons of personal gain or advancement.

As patriotic as you are, you're slightly distrustful of politics for that same reason.

You have a common-law view of society. You understand the concepts of duty, responsibility, retribution, and logically derived principles to protect and preserve the social order. You believe it is logical to be traditional, to uphold time-honored values and institutions.

Your word is your contract. You shake hands on a deal, and that means something to you.

You are thorough, systematic, correct in whatever you try to do. Your product—the work you do—is a reflection of you. You take it seriously, even when nobody else does.

You are old-fashioned enough to believe that marriages should last for more than seven years, regardless of current statistics.

You believe in being a parent, in kids knowing their parents, and in families communicating with each other, other than by mail and long-distance telephone.

People who share your personality structure usually believe in God; in community organizations; in family dogs that live 15 years; in the house where your grandparents lived all their lives; in the Girl Scouts and the Boy Scouts; in field trips with sack lunches and yellow school buses; in men's or women's night out; in family reunions and hunting trips and camping weekends and fishing expeditions.

Introversion, thinking, sensing and judging: all sum up to being very sensible. You're not likely to be into unnecessary frills, in living style, food, wine, clothing, entertainment. You just don't need exotic things in your life, and you're basically distrustful of those who do— especially if they spend lavishly to the jeopardy of security.

In their personal relationships, introverted sensing-types sometimes have a tendency to be lavish with complaints, criticisms and suggestions for their mates, companions and friends. They may tend to be stingy with the emotional goodies others crave. Then, finally, they often get rankled when that behavior pattern provokes arguments. Why? Because your personality type simply expects order and harmony, especially in the homes!

You may wish to spend some time examining this cycle, if you recognize just a bit of yourself in this description.

Some simple exercises can make you more effective in your personal dealings. Remember to compliment as much as you criticize. You can be far more effective in shaping others' behavior to what you want by pointing out how much you enjoy or admire a quality in others, or how much you appreciate it in them. Then your friend or partner has the opportunity to change to please you, rather than to stop displeasing you.

Try to recognize that the personal attack may not be the most socially effective response in your personal arsenal. When you must express disagreement, be on the lookout for your tendency to fall into angry exaggeration to achieve emphasis. It really doesn't work to your benefit.

In conversation, acknowledge the areas of agreement before you jump on the points where you disagree. Congratulate, appreciate, chat, touch and smile more, and you'll smooth out the road for accomplishing your goals.

As an introvert, the social handicaps of the sensing- thinking-judging combination may seem more severe. Sadly, some introverts have a hard time with the interpersonal domain—just as some extraverts have a hard time ever developing a sense of inner reflection. The difference is that an extravert with poorly developed introversion is hard to spot. An introvert with poorly developed social skills may have to struggle to deal with society.

It is unfortunately true that many great introverts fail to have an impact in their field of work simply because they never concoct an effective social mask to wear for the "outside world."

Perhaps it's appropriate to point out here that those with your personality type do have feelings, and they do relate to people. But the introvert invests time, energy and affection in only a few people, measuring friendships by depth and longevity, rather than by breadth or number.

As an introvert, you naturally value inner processes over external signs. As a friend, you need little overt reciprocation of your feelings and little active contact in order to perpetuate a relationship. When a friend really needs you, you'll be there: this year, next year, ten years from now. That's the way friendship operates among introverts.

You tend to form a kind of quiet, intense, devoted friendship which awes your extraverted friends. They can't understand it. Frankly, you do not understand an extravert's concept of friendship, either. To you, their affiliations seem shallow, fleeting and devoid of long-term personal commitment.

When it comes to friendship and love, it's apparent that introverts and extraverts speak different languages using common terms.

It may seem unfair, but it is true that this is an extravert's world. The introvert is expected to adapt, but the extravert must learn the patience to understand.

From time to time, you may show a great deal of what appears to be feeling in your human relationships, especially with your small inner circle of close family and best friends. You will stop at nothing to help those dear to you when they truly need your assistance. Actually, that behavior of yours doesn't stem from irrational sentimentality. You see it as perfectly consistent with the rest of your personality. You use your sensing to recognize that a friend has a need or a problem. You assess the situation and decide logically what must be done. Then, naturally, you proceed.

If a friend gets into trouble you regard as foolish, you may waste no time in letting him know how you feel about his carelessness or stupidity. Nonetheless, while you're giving him a piece of your mind, you'll be helping him out of his fix. To you, that's only logical and responsible behavior between friends.

If this behavior pattern sounds a bit patronizing, you're right, and it reflects a real interpersonal difficulty for those with your personality type. You tend to assume a rescuer role with those closest to you, and you have a tendency to fall into parenting behavior with other adults. This is a pitfall to beware of, especially with your mate.

It is sadly true that many with your rock-solid, super-stable, superdependable personality tend to select those super-unstable, superundependable mates—or they manage to turn otherwise stable people into such in a remarkably short period of time by never allowing their partners to assume responsibility for their own lives.

The Introverted Sensing Type in the World of Work

Your introverted nature needs peace in order to work most comfortably. Whatever the job, you spend a lot of time thinking before acting, and you're in your element when you find work which gives you plenty of time for contemplation.

You don't mind working long hours on a project without a break, and you take pride and interest in your job, especially if you are kept in touch with the ideas behind your assignments.

You prefer a quiet working environment, and you enjoy working alone. If the telephone never rings, and no one ever intrudes or interrupts your train of thought, all the better. It's natural for you to regard other people as a necessary evil of most work situations. You tend to have trouble communicating fluently, and names and faces seem to slip by you without registering more often than you'd like to admit.

More so than your extraverted co-workers, you pay attention to details and you are conservative in drawing conclusions from your work. Those who make flourishing statements make you anxious, especially if they're referring to your accomplishments.

You trust your senses. You're rooted in the real world, not fantasy, and—in the world of work—that translates to patience with familiar tasks, familiar skills, familiar routine.

You work steadily toward your goal, and—with much greater accuracy than the intuitive sorts—you have a good idea of how long it will take to reach the conclusion of the task at hand.

You are good at precise work, and you seldom make errors of fact. Those with less attention to detail, schedules and precision strike you as unreliable.

While others may thrive on novelty, you are frankly uneasy with new problems until you settle on a sure way to solve them. You may become impatient if work becomes too complicated. Change not only makes you uneasy, but sometimes disagreeable, as well.

You have to admit that you sometimes drag your feet when someone turns the tables on you (new task, new technique, new schedule, new rules) after you were comfortably targeted on your original goal!

When you have to deal with intuitive sorts, you may find it difficult to trust their inspirations and adopt them as a basis for trying out changes. You may want to look at that resistance.

On the one hand, your well-expressed objections to their flights of fancy may help keep them from taking off—and taking you off—on joy rides that lead to nowhere. But, on the other hand, with their ideas and your ability to get things done, you may be able to accomplish great things as a team—if both of you give a little. Your judging tendency will have a major impact on your behavior in the work place. Be aware that your personality type tends to set up psychological blinders, and that they can function both to your advantage and disadvantage.

On the positive side, you are good at filtering out extraneous information, so that you can focus on the critical issues to formulate plans, settle conflicts and wrap up deals with a minimum of delay.

But, on the darker side, you may restrict the flow of information too closely to what you consider to be "the essentials," and, by so doing, commit yourself too early to a solution. Worse yet, your tendency to be satisfied with yourself once you have decided on any course of action may make it impossible for you to recognize at an early stage when a mistake in judgment has occurred.

It's not unusual for judging people to find it difficult to interfere with their own plans: to shift gears, to interrupt one project for a more urgent one which emerges. From time to time, this tendency may rear its head, as you fail to notice new things that need to be done, after you've already set your sights on some other objective.

You're a thinker, and when you walk into the work place, everyone around you may hear a computer switch on. When it comes to matters you assign to your thinking side, you tend to be unemotional: more unaware of than uninterested in people's feelings. It's not that you intend to be unkind, but— where work is concerned—you tend to make decisions on an impersonal, logical basis. You hurt people's feelings more times than you know.

You can reprimand people when necessary. You can even fire them, when you feel the situation really demands it. No one would deny that can be an asset: the ability to do what needs to be done, free from self-recrimination and guilt.

You probably are aware that you may crush more feeling-type people, from time to time, but, frankly speaking, you regard your ability to separate your personal views from your work personality as evidence of inner strength. After all, you don't demand personal treatment yourself; you simply ask to be treated fairly. What's more, you understand that there may be adverse re-actions to your impersonal stance, and you take some consolation in the fact that you are more capable than others of getting along without harmony.

Thinkers like you often go far in business and many professional fields.

But you may wish to spend some time examining this part of your personality. If you suspect that most of your associates candidly consider you to be hard-hearted and insensitive; and if you find believable sympathy only among other "thinker-type" workers, you may wish to invest some time and energy in considering alternative points of view.

Remember, there are no "rights" and "wrongs", "weaks" or "strongs" when it comes to personality. There are only differences. You may find added insight and sensitivity an asset, both in the practical and personal sense, when it comes to your co-workers.

So what's the best career for you?

First, last, and in between, your powerful combination of traits forms a personality marked by logic, discipline, acute powers of observation, and loyalty.

If your extraverted facade is sufficiently well developed to make the humancontact element comfortable for you, you can excel in a diversity of careers.

Your penchant for planning, your analytical ability, your inclination toward conservative management, and the ease that marks your handling of great quantities of data, taken together, are the hallmarks of an excellent executive. Your comfort with judging—making well thought-out decisions, and then sticking with your choice—gives you an advantage over perceptive types.

Even if jobs requiring a great deal of human contact conflict with your introverted nature's need for peace and privacy, you can choose a technical career. Introverted sensing-types with thinking become excellent engineers, accountants and contract lawyers, and, in general, perform well in any highly logical profession. Consider a career as a bank examiner, auditor, accountant, tax examiner, securities analyst or other professional advisor-analyst.

You function well as an official of any sort, and you are capable of being an excellent organization person. You believe in the natural order of hierarchies, and you are understand the expectations placed on you and you see the organization as basically logical and just.

Law enforcement careers are attractive to many with your personality.

Basic service occupations also draw many people with your characteristics. Many teachers, secretaries, and nurses have your personality structure, as do others in care-giving positions.

The most important thing to remember is to utilize the best parts—the strongest elements of your personality—in selecting your work field. If you back yourself into a corner—into a job which makes continual demands on your intuition and feeling capacities—you may set yourself up for unnecessary stress in your life.

SJ